


a little broken, a little new

by ohfiitz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, Leo Fitz-centric, Mentions of Cancer, Single Parent Leo Fitz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:24:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4019632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfiitz/pseuds/ohfiitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“People fall in love more than once, Fitz. I think you’d be the first person to know that.”</p><p>(Fitzsimmons childhood friends + single dad!Fitz AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	a little broken, a little new

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maybesandsomedays](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybesandsomedays/gifts), [theradiointukyshead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theradiointukyshead/gifts).



> I wrote this as a joint birthday gift for two of my favorite people in the world. Happy birthday, Cindy and Hoang Anh! I hope you enjoy this ❤
> 
> Title comes from _North_ by Sleeping At Last, which probably surprises no one. So. Yeah.

Leopold Fitz is four years old, and there is an odd-looking girl with short brown curls climbing his monkey bars. He frowns, because they are  _his_ monkey bars, and no one, especially not a  _girl,_ is welcome to climb them.

 

“Hey,” he squeaks up at her, trying to sound big and scary, placing his hands at the back of his waist like his mum does sometimes when she is mad.

 

“I’m busy,” she says, and Fitz hitches his hands further up his back. He will not let a little girl shush him down.

 

“These are my monkey bars.” The girl is at the top by now. She looks down at him and giggles. ( _Giggles!_ )

 

“Of course they’re not. This is a public playground,” she says, still giggling, and Fitz scrunches up his nose because he really hates the sound.

 

“It’s still mine. And I don’t share.”

 

“Well that’s not very nice.”

 

“It’s not nice climbing someone else’s monkey bars either.”

 

She sighs, rolling her big round eyes, then climbs back down. She jumps from the last rung and lands on her feet, brushing the dust off her hands then smoothing out her floral dress. The girl sticks out a hand and uses the other to tuck a strand of her short hair behind her ear. “I’m Jemma,” she says, and Fitz notes her weird accent. He means to tease her for it but chokes on his words when she flashes him a wide smile, the kind that looks true. None of the neighborhood kids have given him that before (no one ever wants to hang out with the small kid with wild curls and zero propensity for ball games), and he wonders if this is how people make friends.

 

“Um. Leo–” He takes her hand and pauses. “Fitz.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Leo Fitz.”

 

“Just Fitz.”

 

“Nice to meet you, just Fitz. Do you want to be friends?” Jemma asks, smile still wide and a bit of pink tinting her freckled cheeks.

 

“You want to be friends? With me?”  _Well, that’s new._ “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

 

“Yeah I… we just moved here. And I don’t have any friends yet.”

 

 _I’ve been here all my life and I still don’t have friends._ He looks her in the eyes and she’s staring at him with the sort of attention he isn’t used to. And for the first of many instances, he finds it impossible to say no to Jemma Simmons.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah, um, I suppose that’s fine.”

 

“Great!” She beams, taking his hand and leaning in to whisper excitedly, “Now tell me Fitz, how do you feel about science?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Leopold Fitz is seven years old, and Jemma Simmons is his best friend in the world. They share stories and sandwiches and science and every moment of their childhood, and it feels like the most perfect thing.

 

He breaks his right arm in second grade while attempting to fix the school bells (Jemma hates it when the classes don't start on time) and she stays with him at the hospital, armed with packs of chocolate and pretzels and, to Fitz's dismay, homework.

 

They sneak up to the hospital rooftop at night, holding hands and munching on the stash of blue M&Ms they’ve been hoarding for months. There aren't really many stars that night, but Jemma insists that they take advantage of the hospital premises to watch the sky.

 

“Isn’t it beautiful, Fitz?”

 

“Looks like a normal sky to me.”

 

Jemma rolls her eyes.  “Well I’ll have you know, your ‘normal sky’ contains billions and billions of balls of gas and plasma that hold the history of the universe.”

 

“You’re such a nerd.”

 

“Says the boy who reads about string theory in his spare time.”

 

“It’s fun.” Fitz says with a shrug.

 

“And thinking of outer space isn't? Sometimes I wonder why we’re friends, Leopold.”

 

Fitz wonders about it too, sometimes. Most of his memories at this point are intertwined with hers, but sometimes his mind drifts to the Before. Sometimes he remembers the feeling of isolation, how lonely it was to have too many questions deemed acceptable for a kid, and no one to ask them with. And, even at seven years old, he realizes how lucky he is to have found a friend in Jemma Simmons.

 

“Jemma?” He says solemnly, facing her with a determined look on his face.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Someday I will buy you a star.”

 

Jemma’s head snaps at that, and she shoots him an incredulous look. She tries to restrain her laugh upon realizing that he’s being serious, but ends up snorting and almost choking on her M&Ms.

 

“Hey!” Fitz says, pouting. “I could, you know. I’ll be an engineer and build fancy machines and become a billionaire. Like Tony Stark. Then I will buy you a star.”

 

“I don’t think that’s quite possible, Fitz. But thanks for the thought. That’s very sweet of you,” she assures him, squeezing his hand affectionately.

 

He squeezes hers back.

 

“Anything for my best friend.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They are fifteen when Fitz finally admits that maybe Jemma is more than just his best friend.

 

He used to find it ridiculous, that whole idea of the two of them being “more than that.” For most of his life, he has found comfort in the fact that their friendship will always be more than any label they can try categorizing it into. Fitz doesn’t trust a lot of truths, but he's always been certain that Jemma is his best friend and his partner and always,  _always_ more. 

 

But things change, and he learns this when suddenly he is hyper-aware of her laugh and the way the copper of her eyes glints just perfectly in the warm afternoon light, and he finds himself grinning at the mere thought of wrapping his arms around her as she leans her head on his shoulder, although they’ve probably done it a thousand times over the course of their decade-long friendship.

  

The thing is, there are two things that absolutely terrify Leopold Fitz:  1.) change and 2.) losing Jemma Simmons. He somehow manages to convince himself that confessing… whatever it is he’s beginning to feel will only result to both these fears, so in the end he swallows everything down and wills away the nagging desire to kiss his best friend senseless.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Fitz is sixteen, and Jemma is leaving.

 

It’s cruel, is what it is. Jemma moved to his hometown ( _their_ hometown, as he allows himself to think sometimes) because of her father’s job, and Fitz has always been thankful to it for bringing them together, but it’s also her father’s job that’s now taking her away, and it’s so  _so_  cruel.

 

The sudden news is bittersweet in every sense. For about three weeks before the move, Jemma divides her nights between sobbing into Fitz’s sheets and gushing excitedly about the new universe of opportunities waiting for her in the bigger, better town they’re moving to. Every night he holds her hand, wishing he was selfish enough to ask her to stay. And every night he fails.

 

So he says goodbye, a letter tucked into his pocket and a thousand, maybe a million words left unspoken.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They try to keep in touch, they really do. But letters and emails and the occasional phone call can only do so much for two kids with big dreams and the rest of the world thrusting them insistently toward adulthood.

 

The distance doesn’t break them. Not really. Very few things are strong enough to break two twin souls like Fitz and Simmons, and distance is not one of them. But they get used to it. Over time, they grow more confident in the distance between them, and soon enough it becomes the only thing they share.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Fitz is twenty when he falls in love.

 

Her name is Katie, and she comes into his life like a burst of cold wind in an otherwise humid day and it sounds so cliché but  _god_ does it feel so true.

 

He tells her about Jemma on a Friday night. She’s telling him that he’s the first person she’s ever truly loved and he just… he just can’t bring himself to say the same.

 

So he tells her everything. He tells her about that day Jemma found him at the playground, about years of alternating for the top spot in class, countless sleepovers and school dances, the distressing newness of falling in love, and finding peace in letting go. In the end, Katie leans up and kisses him quickly, smiling as she speaks about how lucky humans are, to have a heart that’s capable of loving again and again and again. Even after hurting. Even after giving up.

 

It’s also what she tells him a few weeks before their daughter Maddie is born and they find out about the lump in her left breast.

 

“People fall in love more than once, Fitz. I think you’d be the first person to know that.” She tells him with a chuckle that sounds harshly bright for a topic as grim as death.

 

“I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about you, and...and...”

 

“Death?” She says softly, and for the millionth time he falls in love at her ability to turn every bitter thing into something beautiful. “I like to think about the first law of thermodynamics. That no energy in the universe is created and none is destroyed,” she muses, and it reminds him of a certain girl with princess curls and amber eyes holding his hand at a hospital rooftop.

 

When Katie dies on a quiet November night, forty six days after Maddie’s birth, Fitz holds his daughter to his chest, humming a promise to never let her forget her mother’s courage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the summer of his twenty sixth year, they begin again.

 

Maddie is four and every bit as smart and stubborn as her father was as a four-year-old, so  _naturally_ it only takes two days of classes before Fitz is summoned to her preschool. Apparently his daughter couldn’t even wait a week before inquiring about particle physics.

 

So he strides into Maddie’s classroom one Wednesday morning, his “I’m not sorry my daughter is insatiably curious but I will make sure to remind her to tone it down” speech all perfected in his head, when — oh  _shit._

 

“Jemma?”

 

Her hair is much shorter now, and the past ten years have quite evidently worked in her favor, but not even the most drastic of changes can make him miss the sunshine smile that’s undeniably Jemma Simmons.

 

“Fitz? Leopold Fitz? Oh it’s been ages!” Her eyes widen and she gasps sharply before flinging herself into him and engulfing him into a hug.

 

“Yeah, it’s um, it’s been quite a while.” He says as they pull away. “So you, do you work here? I don’t remember seeing you at the orientation.”

 

“Yes, just for this year.” Jemma replies, smiling wide. “My research was put on hold and I supposed it would be a good chance to go back home.”

 

He raises his eyebrow.

 

“This isn’t your hometown.”

 

“Yeah. But, well… it’s home.” She says, ducking her head bashfully. “So would you… do you want to maybe come by my place sometime? Just catch up and all that? I’ll even cook you dinner. You and Maddie and her mum.”

 

“Oh no. She um, Maddie... her mum passed away. Four years ago. Just after…Um. Yeah.”

 

Jemma claps her hands over her mouth before sliding them back down to rest on her nape. “Oh. Oh god I... Fitz I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” She mumbles, closing her eyes.

 

“Hey no, don’t be. I hope that doesn’t cancel your invitation, though. I was looking forward to having Maddie try your world-famous sandwich.”

 

Jemma opens her eyes and grins at him.

 

“Prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella—”

 

“—with a hint of your homemade pesto aioli.”

 

“Oh, Fitz. Of course you’d remember that. But yes, the invitation for Mister and Little Miss Madeleine Fitz still stands.”

 

“We’ll be there, Miss Simmons.”

 

“ _Doctor_ Simmons.” She corrects him.

 

“Ah, right. Sorry. We’ll be there, Doctor Nerd.”

 

“Says the guy who apparently reads string theory to his four-year-old kid.”

 

He shrugs. “She likes it.”

 

—

 

_Mr. Leo Fitz,_

 

_First of all, I would like to assure you that your daughter continues to display exceptional intelligence for a girl her age. You must be very proud. However, I am writing because Maddie came to school last Tuesday with an impressively accurate mechanical model of the human heart, and while I commend you for your active involvement in your daughter’s projects, we request that you keep them within reason. For example, the instruction for this particular assignment was merely to depict a heart. A simple crayon drawing would have sufficed. Thank you for your cooperation._

_Warmest regards,_

_Jemma Simmons, PhD._

 

 

—

 

 

_Mr. Fitz,_

_I was under the impression that I already got my point across through my last letter. But to eliminate any room for misunderstanding, let me make it very clear: please stop bringing scale models that can’t even fit through the door._

_Thank you._

_Sincerely,_

_Jemma Simmons_

 

—

 

_LEOPOLD,_

_STOP TURNING MY CLASSROOM INTO A MUSEUM!!!_

_JEMMA_

 

—

 

_[From Fitz: I don't know, Simmons. I rather think the kids could use more visual tools to aid their learning. Although, another prosciutto and buffalo mozzarella sandwich and maybe a beer or two might make me reconsider.]_

_[From Jemma: Are you threatening me?]_

_[From Fitz: No. I'm just saying, this four-foot model of the Hubble Space Telescope is looking really good...]_

_[From Jemma: Ugh. Oh fine, you prat. I'll be at the deli round Archer Street on Saturday noon. Feel free to accidentally bump into me or something. Then we'll talk.]_

 

 

* * *

 

 

After approximately six totally random meetings (and _really_ , it's not his fault that they just happen to keep bumping into each other in movie houses and restaurants and museums), Fitz finally manages to ask Simmons out on a proper date.

 

Somewhere between the accidental dates and Disney marathons, sharing a bowl of blue M&Ms and with Maddie sprawled across their laps, they fall in love. It’s both new and familiar, and Fitz can almost hear Katie teasing him with that F. Scott Fitzgerald quote she used to love.

 

_There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice._

 

He supposes it’s true, and when Maddie comes home one day with a portrait of the two of them and Auntie Jem (he would have to tell that child to stop drawing him with a monkey head), Fitz decides that he’s not going to give up on Jemma Simmons a second time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Leopold Fitz is twenty eight, and the prettiest girl with pretty brown curls is walking down the aisle to meet him for probably the thousandth time in his life. It feels like a million years before Jemma comes up to his side, and he takes her hand.

 

“Thank you. For coming home.” He says, kissing her knuckles right above her meteorite ring (he did, after all, promise her a star, and it was the closest thing he could buy).

 

She flashes him a wide smile, the kind that looks true.

 

“Anything for my best friend.”

 

 


End file.
